This past week terrorist events focused on the violent clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces on the Temple Mount. Palestinians, some of them masked, prepared in advance for the clashes by stockpiling cinderblocks, rocks, stones, wooden boards, Molotov cocktails and fireworks. This past week three Palestinians were killed in various events during which Israeli security forces met with violent resistance while detaining wanted terrorists.

Some ten months after the opening of the US-led campaign against ISIS, this week there has been a possible fundamental change in Turkey’s policy. From ISIS’s perspective, the Turkish activity along the border and the widespread wave of detentions may impede ISIS’s supply routes and make it more difficult for foreign fighters to join ISIS. In the main areas of fighting in Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Libya, there were no significant changes on the ground this week.

Terrorist Attacks

Israel's south remains quiet. In Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem violence and terrorism continue, although their intensity has abated somewhat. Ms. Fatou Bensouda, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, announced a preliminary examination would be carried out into the situation in "Palestine" to determine if there was a reasonable basis for an investigation by the Court. On January 18, 2015, a convoy of Hezbollah operatives was attacked in the northern Syrian Golan Heights. Six Hezbollah terrorist operatives were killed, among them Jihad Mughnieh, the son of senior Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mughnieh,

Between January 7 and 9, 2015, local jihadist operatives carried out a series of shooting attacks in Paris, including a mass shooting attack at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, which had long been in the jihadi organizations' crosshairs (12 killed, ten employees and two policemen), a shooting attack at a Jewish school that was not carried out, apparently because of a traffic accident (one policewoman killed), and a shooting attack and bargaining attempt at a kosher supermarket (four killed, all Jewish). Seventeen people were killed and more than 10 were wounded.

This past week clashes continued along the Israel-Gaza Strip border. In Hebron an ISIS-affiliated terrorist squad was apprehended. The Palestinian Authority's proposed UN resolution failed to pass the Security Council vote. In response the PA formally filed applications to join twenty international conventions. In response, Israel froze the transfer of 500 million shekels ($126 million) in tax revenues collected for the PA. Palestinian public figures strongly condemned the Israeli decision.

This past week Palestinian snipers shot at an IDF force securing work being conducted near the border security fence. In Samaria, a young girl was critically injured by a Molotov cocktail thrown at the family car. On December 30, 2014, the UN Security Council rejected the Palestinian resolution calling for the end of the Israeli occupation and the establishment of a Palestinian state with the 1967 borders.

A rocket hit was identified in Israel's south, the third since the end of Operation Protective Edge. On December 17, 2014, Jordan proposed a draft version of a Palestinian resolution to the UN Security Council calling for a peace arrangement and the end of the (Israeli) occupation of the Palestinian territories before 2017. On December 17, 2014, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) announced it had annulled the measures against Hamas, namely the designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization and the freezing of Hamas' funds.

Previous years bulletins

Information on Terrorist Attacks

For decades the Palestinian terrorist organizations have waged a vicious war against the State of Israel, causing untold bloodshed. Their mass-casualty suicide bombing attacks claimed hundreds of victims. It is difficult to pinpoint the exact beginning of terrorist attacks against Israel. However, after the Six Day War Palestinian terrorism accelerated and the number to terrorist attacks in Israel and abroad against Jewish and Israeli targets increased.During the 1970s planes were hijacked by terrorists from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Most prominent at the time was a Fatah organization called Black September, which in 1972 killed 11 Israeli sportsmen at the Munich Olympics. Trans-border terrorist attacks were also carried (attacks from Jordan until 1970 and attacks from the Lebanese border), some of them targeting Israeli civilians. In the 1990s suicide bombing attacks became the main form of terrorist attack carried out by the Palestinians, first by the radical Islamic organizations, primarily Hamas, and later by the secular organizations. There was a significant increase in terrorist attacks during the Palestinian terrorist campaign of 2000-2005 (known as the Al-Aqsa or second intifada), during which a great many attacks were carried out, including many suicide bombing attacks which disrupted daily life in Israel and threatened its large cities.The number of terrorist attacks diminished after Operation Cast Lead and thanks to the construction of large sections of the security fence.